Perfect Sense

“Perfect Sense” dares to ask the hypothetical question of what would happen if “28 Days Later .. “ was crossbred with “You’ve Got Mail.” Of course, nobody in their right mind would ever fathom such a ridiculous pairing, but nonetheless that’s the most apt description I could come up with.

The film is unique in the way it melds together the dire atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic drama with the cheesy boy/girl interaction inherent in a romance. The film takes place in the present day where a new epidemic is taking the world by storm. However, unlike so many contagion movies, “Perfect Sense” centers around a very unique plague. The infected start off by showing symptoms of rage, anger and hatred before eventually losing senses. The loss of smell is seemingly most common, but eventually the loss of hearing and sight becomes more prevalent.

Amid all this anarchy are two individuals who fall in love, a chef (Ewan McGregor) and an epidemiologist (Eva Green). Sounds like the start of a bad joke, right? Of course, the irony of these two particular individuals (given their professions) losing their hearing and sense of smell is almost too contrived to stomach. But that quite perfectly sums up “Perfect Sense” for me. It’s a series of scenes, each more painfully melodramatic than the last, but with very little substance to accompany the drama. Where the film falls short in particular is in this drab uber-sincerity exhibited throughout the movie. The film progresses as naturally as one would expect, but there’s not any attempt made at building a relationship between the audience and the main characters. They are basically strangers by the end of it all, with nothing left to show. Without that integral connection, the whole movie is but a waste of time, albeit a beautiful one at that.

Despite the vapidity of the overall plot and blandness of the pivotal role-players, the cinematography is actually rather exquisite. There were times at which I was genuinely taken aback by some of the imagery. Also to note, the story itself is incredibly unique and interesting in and of itself despite the movie’s poor execution that leads to a rather forgettable end result. “Perfect Sense” has all the right pieces to be a superb movie, but alas, it’s just as hollow and painfully ironic as the name would suggest.

The Blu-ray release almost mirror the banality of the movie itself. The special features section contains a trailer and a terribly dull making-of piece that is all of 2 minutes long. Aside from that, it’s probably worth owning on Blu-ray if for no other reason besides the fact that it’s a visual spectacle worthy of HD quality. The story itself though … not so much.